ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #15 -- AUGUST 25, 2013

ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #15

AUGUST 25, 2013

This week felt SUPER long, just because we did so much stuff this week. We just seemed to always be doing stuff, and there were a lot of new things too.

Tuesday after district meeting, Elder Pratt went to Jilong and I stayed in Neihu with Elder Anderson. Elder Anderson is a super hard-working missionary on his 4th transfer, and we had a lot of fun. Because we were in my area, I was 大同伴 (senior companion). It was weird. It was definitely different to feel responsible for the work in my area. I think that was a good feeling though, and I definitely grew a lot this week.

As we were trying to get to Jilong to swap back, we found out that the bus wasn't running! That's because on Wednesday we also had a typhoon!! Typhoon Tamri hit us on Wednesday afternoon, but it wasn't really that big a deal. Just a LOT of rain. Seriously, SO MUCH RAIN. I don't think it stopped raining for 24 hours. Elder Anderson and I ended up spending an extra day on exchanges together, but half of that was inside because of the typhoon.

Thursday Elder Pratt and I went to headquarters for a trainer follow-up meeting. It was really cool to see my whole district from the MTC there and to see how much we've grown. When we last met, we didn't anything, but then we were experienced missionaries who had been doing the Lord's work! It was cool to see the change in all of us.

Friday was exchanges with the Zone Leaders! Once again I was in Neihu being senior companion. In fact, I think I spent more time this week being senior companion than I did being junior companion. It was once again interesting to take more responsibility for the work.

On Friday night, we got out of an appointment at 9:15 on the other side of the area! In our efforts to get home on time (before 9:30) we were booking it out of there. The Lord blessed us with enough green lights to get home before the time limit. A normally 20 min ride took us about 12 min. We were blessed in our efforts to be obedient!

It's still ghost month here, and we seen a lot more of the people doing their traditional things. People will gather on the side of the road with a table of food because they believe that the ghosts will come and eat the spiritual part of the food and therefore be appeased. Traditionally, people aren't supposed to eat the food because it's been corrupted, but people eat the food anyway. They also go buy little gold pieces of paper, and one by one burn them in a metal can on the sidewalk. I don't really understand it, but it's more of tradition than religion at this point.

Chinese is cool because you can understand new words that you've never heard before by just knowing and guessing at the parts. On Sunday I heard the word "xiu1 xue2" and because I knew "xiu1 xi2" which means rest and "xue2 sheng1" which means student, I knew that xiuxue meant a break from school! It was cool to learn a new word without needing a dictionary!

Some other things:

-Our bishop is awesome. He's just always on fire about things. Yesterday at church he stood up in Priesthood and gave an appeal for the brethren to attend their priesthood meeting on Wednesday. He's just awesome! He's helping us peike tonight, and we're super excited!

-One of the things my companion will often say while contacting is really interesting. He will often say that we don't count as a 基督教 but that we are 基督徒. Which basically means that we don't count as a "Christian church" but that we are followers of Christ. The Taiwanese people have different connotations for "Christian church" so I like that we differentiate ourselves. We really are very different than most Christian churches, but we are absolutely followers of Christ. I really like that.

-The week starts on Monday in Taiwan.

Shorter letter this week, we were just really busy this week! I hope things are going well there in the states!

Thanks for your support! You are always in my prayers!

加油！

Elder Richardson

田長老